photographing the lunar eclipse - 3rd March ?

Hello all,

If its clear tonight I will try and take some photo's of the lunar eclipse
(22:44 - 23:58 GMT)

Any tips from those out there who have some experience of doing this before.

I will be using my trusty old Super A, A400mm f/5.6, tripod and cable release.

Any particular film recomendations or exposure guides ?

Here's hoping there are no cloulds tonight over Stockholm (outlook not promising)

Cheers,

/Ian

I'd use ~400 ISO film, open the lens right up and bracket like mad. With my K10D I intend to spot meter on the moon (assuming there are no clouds, and thats a big assumption since I'm in the UK).

I would take a different approach, and on film would use the slowest film possible to ensure good, clean blacks. The moon is quite bright so in itself won't cause exposure problems. It is also relecting sunlight, so daylight film should be fine. The eclipse will be darker of course, but then so it should be. If you meter and brighten it up it won't be accurate.

The biggest problems I see are getting a large enough image on the film/CCD and getting a fast enough shutter speed to stop the moon in its tracks - it moves quite fast.

I've never done this seriously, so this is just how I would start, but before I did all this I would read a book on Astronomical Photography so I had some expert advice before I started.

Is the library still open?

Hello,

Thanks for the tips. The local library is closed, but luckly the www is always open. Found some useful information here:

http://www.mreclipse.com/LEphoto/LEphoto.html

The cloulds in this part of the world are breaking up, so perhaps I might get a chance to photograph the moon tonight after all.

Cheers again,

/Ian

I'm with JR on this one, I used to love fast film for general shooting, but always used iso 100 or iso 50 c-41 films for low light/night photography due to 3 reasons:

A) you'll need a tripod no matter what....(fast film during the day can lighten your load under a variety of lighting situations)
B) slower films were always less expensive...(you will be bracketing alot)
C) reciprocity failure throws your exposure readings outa whack once you get past one second exposures. slow films suffr less ill effects than fast films.
digital shooters can use the free transform tool to squeeze the final image a bit to get the moon to appear less oval in a long exposure.

Does anybody know how far south the eclipse can be seen? Will I see anything from southern spain?

You will see it in Spain.

See: http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2007/12feb_lunareclipse.htm?list77972.


It is cloudy here though

Well it's been a beautiful clear blue sky here today and an equally clear night. No clouds as yet.

Got some piccies. I will look at them in the morning and see if there's anything any good. It has clouded over again now.

It was beautifully clear over edinburgh Quite lucky considering the weather forecast said it might have rained.

Here's my eclipse. Not too sharp as my poor old tripod doesn't cope with the weight Bigma too well.

Seems you have the same problem as me Gwyn, I bought the Velbon CF630 and that doesn't like the bigma either (or maybe its the head)

I didn't bother with the "eclipse" shots, I just waited for the blood moon ones, despite using the remote release on 3sec delay with mirror lock up I still got nothing but fuzzy shots, guess I wasn't expecting such low shutter speeds either.

I used the remote release on 3 sec delay too.

It was the head that let me down too, but on my Velbon I can't change it so I'm off to try out tripods this next week to see what can cope with the Bigma, and won't break the bank!

My experience too.

Pre-totality I was getting results like this:




K10D, Sigma 400mm, 1/250, F8, ISO 200

... whereas during totality they all looked like this:




I didn't move the focus in the meantime, and although I'd increased the exposure to about 4 seconds and F6.7, I was using remote release and mirror lock up. I think I can rule out camera shake - I was careful to have SR off, and I've had exposures up to 30s on the same tripod that have been very sharp.

Any ideas why the during-totality shots are so rubbish? Is 4s enough for the moon's movement to give this much blur?

Hi Chris, in a word yes, the moon travels across the sky at 0.25deg/Min (0.0042deg/sec), it's orbit is 250,000 miles from earth, this translates to the moon traveling across the axis of your lens at 18miles/sec 64800miles/hour.